An Ordinary Life

by Nawazuddin Siddiqui

  Like boys did back then in villages, we too almost always wore crisp, white kurta-pyjama made of cotton. During the jamun season, when my friends—who were mostly good-for-nothing punks in Ammi’s eyes since they were not studious—and I plucked jamuns, we hid them in the generous pockets of our kurtas. Soon, there would be pretty purple stains on these pockets, which tattled loudly, instantly, giving away the whole story and ending in a shower of thrashings from Ammi. It was not just our tidiness. Back then, I had no idea what back-breaking work it was to scrub away those stains, which Ammi had to do herself.

  I was the first one in all of Budhana to own a pair of jeans. I had asked one of my mother’s brothers, my mamu, who lived in Pakistan, to get me two pairs of jeans. Ammi thought, chalo bachchey ka shauk hai (my little one wants this). So she asked him to get them and to deduct the money from the sum he owed her. This was around 1985 and that mamu charged Rs 15,000 for two pairs of jeans. Can you imagine? 15,000! In those days, it was a princely sum, often the annual salary of a government employee who ran an entire middle-class family on it. Of course, Ammi had no idea about jeans and assumed that they really did cost this much. But Abbu could easily sniff a crook when he saw one. So he never spoke to them or of them. They were practically thieves. Most uncles are delighted to give tokens of affection to their nephews, not con them and their own sisters. Eventually, we cut off contact with all of them, except one—the only one who was honest.

  A Qureshi family lived next door to us. The Qureshis belong to the caste of butchers. Many change their profession, while many stick to it. Our neighbours ran a slaughterhouse. It isn’t that all houses of butchers are unhygienic, but theirs was. It was always buzzing with flies. Ammi had forbidden me from going there not just due to their lower caste but also due to the lack of cleanliness. But I went there all the time. The wife of the butcher made the most delicious tahri I have tasted in my entire life. It was out of this world! It was so addictive that I went there despite knowing that I’d be getting a generous helping of Ammi’s beatings for dessert. I went there all through my childhood. I went there even when I was studying at drama school and came to visit. And I continue to go there even today, only for that tempting tahri.

  During the day, it was common for our house to be filled up with about twenty girls. They were all Ammi’s students. She would teach them Arabic and the Quran Shareef. In return, they did some of our housework, like cleaning, sweeping and making rotis. They also helped with babysitting all of their teacher’s children. Every single one of us siblings had an older student to watch over us and take care of us for a few hours. Naturally, we were very fond of these didis. Even though they were in charge, they were different from the adult authority figures. The girl who watched over me was called Sarvo. Once she made me lick salt, perhaps from a salt-laced fruit. I was just two and a half years old at the time and could not take it. I threw up instantly. Not anticipating this, Sarvo was surprised, scared and guilty all at once. After all, she was just a child herself. Perhaps it was food poisoning, perhaps a tummy bug, perhaps a mild infection. I fell sick and kept vomiting. Naturally, Ammi was very upset with Sarvo, but the worry over her sick child distracted her from lashing out at my juvenile caretaker.

  Ammi must have educated close to 150 girls in total. In fact even today, Ammi can be found teaching four or five girls. Her voice can be heard across the corridors correcting the pronunciation of simple words like Raheem and stressing over the phonetic perfection of the ‘r’ and the ‘z’ sounds. Naturally, she taught me Arabic as well. I am so fluent that I understand Middle Eastern films perfectly, I don’t need subtitles.

  Ammi used to beat me a lot. I would stay out all day, playing all kinds of games—kanche (marbles), gilli danda and my favourite, flying kites. Ammi wanted me to study while I just wanted to play.

  There was this one time when Ammi got really furious with me. I had been flying a kite almost all afternoon. It was no small feat. I was on cloud nine with happiness. Then Ammi quietly came up to the terrace. Without a word, she pulled the string from my hand, instantly leaving the kite I had manoeuvred with so much love to its fate. I was completely crushed. Watching the kite leaving felt like my heart was leaving me.

  I had what can only be described as a mad passion for flying kites. If I was ever on the terrace flying kites in the afternoon, it was pretty much guaranteed that I would stay there until dusk, until the last ray of sun and I could not see the kite any more. Already, I was very skinny and weak. Sometimes, without realizing how exhausted I had gotten in the hot sun, I would simply faint.

  I remember for about two to three years, I was in a haze of fear. All of that sun and exhaustion and Ammi’s beatings made me so afraid that I had begun to hallucinate—wondering if the walls were swaying, curving, dancing. When I slept at night, the roof’s kadiyan too kept turning round and round like prayer wheels in a monastery. The fear that had created these crazy visions stayed with me for a few years due to Ammi’s pitai.

  Sometimes she hit me with an electric wire; sometimes with a chimta, a pair of tongs; and sometimes, her asbestos hands were enough. I was beaten for many, many years, until I was about sixteen years old. But at the same time, she loved me fiercely, always wanting something greater for me than Budhana had to offer.

  My gang comprised Naadra, Nehraz and Ayaz, and an assortment of cousins, relatives and friends. One day, Ayaz and I went out with some of them, spent time at their house and returned home very late. Fat iron rods jutted very high out of a wall in our house that served for purposes like hanging clothes. But that day, Ammi tied both our hands to them with ropes, not unlike the scene in Sholay where the villain Gabbar Singh hangs several of the lead characters by their wrists with ropes. I had enough guile to free my arms, pretending to be tied only when Ammi was close by. Ayaz, though, was not as cunning and kept screaming in pain. Ammi wondered why I was so quiet and immediately discovered my trick. She pulled me down and beat the living daylights out of me.

  When I was in the sixth or seventh class, I used to get a tiny sum as pocket money to buy things that I required. A pen cost two rupees but I’d say it cost five and I’d get that much money. Ammi would ask, ‘Nawaz, how does a pen cost five rupees?’ And I’d dissect a pen and explain passionately how the dhakkan—the cap—of the pen cost two rupees, the nib a rupee and the body of the pen itself cost two rupees. Then I’d ask her, ‘What’s the total, Ammi?’

  ‘Five rupees, Nawaz,’ she would say, convinced.

  It was the same with erasers and other kinds of stationery. I saved up a lot of money that way. Now guess where I’d spend this little fortune I had amassed?

  On C-grade movies, of course. What else!

  The cinema hall was a little strange. Its gate had slits inside it for ventilation. My buddies and I would pay the ticket seller 50 paise per head to let us watch the film through this slit. I had to close one eye completely and squint hard with the other because the space was that tiny. The normal cost of a ticket was about four or five rupees. But the ticket seller would let us watch this way until the film’s interval for 50 paise each. Then, at interval, we would scoot off instantly to avoid being discovered. The next day, we would return to watch the remaining half of the film, post-interval, after paying another 50 paise each. I watched a whole bunch of films this way in parts for a rupee. I still remember some of them. Like Geet which had this famous song called ‘Aaja Tujhko Pukare’. There were movies with stars like Jitendra and Rajendra Kumar. Then there were C-grade movies with colourful titles like Khoon ka Badla Khoon, Bindiya Maange Bandook and movies like Ranga Khush of C-grade stars like Joginder.

  * * *

  When we became older, most of us now teenagers, we used to dip an immersion rod into the large drum of water in the bathroom. Since power cuts were normal in the morning, we did this at night when there was electricity. All night, the water would heat up. Like Ammi was the authority figure in my life, I was the authority figure among the children. If I was around,
they knew they had to straighten their backs and walk with a fine posture; they would also ensure that they had their shoes on, etc. Basically, I was inculcating a military-like discipline in them, just like what Ammi had instilled in me. So on those freezing winter mornings, I ensured that all the brothers bathed. One day thirteen-year-old Faizi went into the bathroom, wet his hair and emerged, pretending to have taken a bath. Like a mother I knew when my children were lying. I confronted him right away.

  ‘Faizi, come here. Did you not bathe?’

  ‘No, no, Bhaijaan,’ he defended. ‘Look at my hair. It is wet. I did bathe.’

  ‘Really? Take off your shirt. Let’s see.’

  As soon as he removed his shirt, it was obvious that he had not bathed. His skin did not have the warm, supple moisture that freshly showered skin does. It was dry. I lost my temper. I lifted him, took him back to the bathroom and dropped him straight into the drum of what by then had become chilled water. ‘Take a bath!’ I ordered and walked off.

  I remain very close to Ammi till this day. In our area, at that time sixth grade was considered college. So when I was in the fifth grade, a deposit had to be paid to secure that spot well in advance. But, of course, we had no money for this deposit. Without a second thought, Ammi immediately went to the jeweller and pawned her ornaments to pay the fees. My education was her biggest priority. Abbu never interfered; he was too busy with his own struggles. He was just aware that his children were getting their education. So this became a sort of a ritual. Every time I needed money for my education, she would deposit her jewellery as a collateral and take a loan. Then after some months, when some money had been saved up, she would go get her jewellery back. Being the oldest, I experienced her qurbaniyan first-hand. The rest of the kids were quite small, so I am not sure if they remember this sacrifice. It also set a precedent for my siblings to focus on their education no matter what.

  Throughout those years, my siblings openly wondered why I was Ammi’s favourite. After all, I used to simply state what we needed to do, while they were the ones who ran around and did all the hard work, such as renovating the house, taking care of the ill, and so on. When I was away in college, Ammi used to dictate letters—since she was fluent in Arabic and we wrote in Hindi or English—to them and they used to marvel at how much she loved me, how much she encouraged me. ‘In twelve years, even the luck of garbage changes. Yours is bound to. It has no choice.’

  In the summer of 2016 shortly before a shoot in Delhi, I quickly took a two-day trip to Budhana. So did several of my brothers. Ammi sent with me a gigantic container of ladoos she had painstakingly made herself. She did not give them to any of the others, not even to Shamas who was headed for Mumbai.

  Finally, they got fed up of the mystery, called her up and demanded an explanation. Ammi said, ‘Nawaz always listened to me. He did what he wanted to do. But he also always did what I asked him to do, without questioning me. Zubaan nahin chalayee kabhi usne. Kabhi uff tak nahin ki.’ (He never questioned me.) None of us had seen it this way, but then I respected her the most, while for my siblings she was more of a yaar-dost. This meant casual quarrels, arguments, etc.

  5

  My Colourful Childhood

  My earliest childhood memory is of the huge courtyard of my house bursting with sunlight so intense that it was bright-white and white-hot. This torridity was an ubiquitous part of my life. As there was no air conditioning those days, the sun sadistically ensured that we felt its oppression every time we breathed. We did our best to cheat the tyrant: we sprinkled water all over the floors for a little bit of respite, for a little bit of coolness· We hung heavy curtains everywhere; they were like guards, meant to absorb whatever they could of this cruel army of incandescence. We surrendered to afternoon siestas, unconsciously turning them into a ritual, because we could do little else outside.

  Loo, that fierce, infamous Indian summer wind danced in its full tandav-like fury outside, mercilessly baking victims who had dared to step out. So naturally, the streets were empty and Budhana became a ghost town in the afternoons.

  But every now and then, a child would be tempted by something shiny and step out of the relatively cool, dark indoors, only to be smacked by the wanton wind. We would then colloquially diagnose this as ‘Bachchey ko loo lag gayee.’ (The kid has got the loo.)

  That’s when a special man, the patwari, was called. He was the equivalent of Budhana’s 911, a local medical emergency service especially for children. The patwari in my village was an old, old man with a long, thin, wispy, white beard and a default arrogance he seemed to be completely unaware of. He was not a quack—in fact, he was decently educated for those times. Wisdom dripped from his droopy wrinkles. He was highly respected, but also known for his short temper and wry attitude—for instance, he used slang even while showing affection; so people had mixed feelings towards him.

  Budhana’s patwari used to address Ammi by sternly shouting, ‘Arrey oh, Nawab ki Bahu!’—the wife of Nawab. Those were days of purdah. Ammi would push us out in the front while she stood just inside the doorway, while the Patwari stood outside, respecting the invisible line like the Ramayana’s lakshman rekha. In a voice, as if chanting, he used to read out the Ayat, verses from the Quran about miracles or prayers, in front of us Siddiqui siblings, or any other sick children around. And then slowly, carefully, like a bubble artist blowing giant balloon-like bubbles with the utmost care and grace so that their art does not burst, the patwari too would slowly blow these utterly enchanting whiffs of air on our faces. It was as if there was a dark tunnel of mysteries inside his mouth, from where he pulled out these deeply relaxing breaths. In the middle of the loo, the cool puffs he blew soothed us instantly. If a child had a sore throat, he would gently rub a special holy ash as he read out the Ayat. We felt better soon. You could call it energy healing. To us, it was pure magic!

  * * *

  The seasons went on quietly doing their thing without stopping for anyone and before we knew it, winter would creep up on us, one twilight at a time. We had to pull out our brahmastra, a fine little contraption that we called buraade ki angeethi. Buraad is what we called sawdust and thanks to Abbu’s business, it was aplenty. An angeethi is a brazier, a receptacle made of metal or clay to hold the coal. We would put the buraad in a funnel in the angeethi and press it down tightly along with the coal. It would burn all night and keep us warm. Every morning, we needed to rouse in ourselves the will of warriors to get out of the cosy comfort of our quilts and the heavenly heat from the buraade ki angeethi, and step outside into the biting cold awaiting us and start our day.

  Just like we had our own heating devices instead of fireplaces or modern-day heaters, similarly, we had bitaudas instead of gas cylinders for the longest time. Depending on their size, these were towers or hills made by stacking uplas—cow dung cakes that had been diligently collected, shaped and dried by women. A tiny hole was cut into these miniature mountains to remove as many uplas as was needed to be used as gobar gas, a biofuel used for chulha. The insides of the bitaudas were warm, moist and dark, not unlike holes in the ground. And so it was not surprising at all that they were a favourite hub of lazy snakes who loved free housing. Often enough, somebody would put their hand inside the bitauda to pull out an upla or two for the day’s cooking, and a snake, extremely offended by this invasion of privacy, would bite her.

  Immediately, someone around would run as fast as they could and call Maulana Jamsheed. He had an utterly fascinating way of curing all kinds of snakebites. You have to see it to believe it. Two people would tightly hold the person who had been bitten. Then he would vigorously slap sprinkles after sprinkles of water on the person’s third eye area in the middle of the forehead. With every series of forceful sprinkles he would question the snake, ‘Tell!’ More beads of liquid beatings. ‘Tell me why did you bite this person? Tell me why.’ Another set of water slaps. For the snake, this was no less aggressive than a hardcore police interrogation.

  Every two or three m
inutes it would bend under this fierce questioning. ‘I am walking!’ The snake’s voice would emerge faintly from the victim. ‘I’m walking and this guy comes up in my way. What the hell!’ The snake would talk back answering the question as to why it had bitten. Sometimes, the snake was as strong as a pehelwan and it took up to ten people to hold the victim down.

  In the end, neem leaves would be fed. If the person had neem leaves and found them bitter, then you knew he had been cured. If he was able to eat them up easily—because obviously the bitterness was not potent enough—then that meant that there was still a lot more work to be done. We called this mildly exorcist process jhadna. Saap ka kaata jhadna—loosely translated as sweeping off the snakebite.

  Once we travelled to Delhi with my mother’s brother, my mama, for a relative’s wedding, near Jama Masjid in Daryaganj. Mamu also took me to a popular movie theatre called Regal in Connaught Place which closed down recently. That was the first time for me in a movie theatre, the first time I was watching a film. I fail to recall my exact age, I think I was about six or seven years old. Though I cannot remember its name, the film itself is etched in my mind. After all, you never forget your first film. It starred Shatrughan Sinha and his character was called Jaggu Dada. I was completely mesmerized by him! In this particular film, Sinha had an odd way of running, which stuck with me. I did not know then that I would imitate it soon after, and would continue to do so for years to come.